


'cause power is my love when my love reaches to me

by itsokaybabytheresnoexit



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: Chess, Chess Metaphors, Don't Judge Me, F/M, Late Night Conversations, Title from a Hozier Song, nervous breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:22:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27740701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsokaybabytheresnoexit/pseuds/itsokaybabytheresnoexit
Summary: After the adjournment, Beth wanders down to the part of the hotel where chessboards are, and after a while Borgov appears. They have a conversation about Art and Chess and how there's no escape. Basically I had a mental breakdown at 4AM and this is the result.
Relationships: Vasily Borgov & Beth Harmon
Comments: 8
Kudos: 67





	'cause power is my love when my love reaches to me

Harmon watches the pieces clatter on the desk and sink into the silence of the carpet. She must have another set somewhere, she knows- they roll under her bed and she is tired and thirsty and there’s a bold emptiness in her stomach. What is there to be done? She knows the hotel has a room full of chess boards, and that’s where she’ll go. The places of the adjournment stand inside her mind, puncture the skin of her head- the usual drug-induced dreaminess is gone, they are too real, they stand material and smooth- Borgov, of course, begs to differ. She walks down the corridor and considers how much she thinks of him these days- intensely, carefully, turning over the very idea of him. She pushes against the double doors until they slide by.

“Miss Harmon,” smiles Luchenko. She is startled, her eyes widen.

“I didn’t realise the room was occupied,” she says. Two other men stand- those she’s seen accompany Borgov sometimes, the chess players.

“It’s alright. There is no rivalry here.” She sees her game with Borgov. “You came to play?”

“I managed to scatter my pieces all over the floor, so I came to seek refuge,” she says, and Luchenko chuckles.

“You’re playing the adjournment?”

“Yes. He isn’t?” She curses herself for acknowledging his absence so soon.

“He’s gotten us to do the work,” says one of the men.

“He needed rest,” Luchenko nods. “Please, join us.”

“Are we not meant to not have any contact?”

“Direct contact,” the other man says, “Discussion about the game with the opponent.”

“Oh.”

She treads closer, selecting a board and quickly shifting the pieces to the familiar positions. She feels tense, but it would be too rude to gather the board up to her room. It is too late, of course. It’s nearly three in the morning. The two men leave, mumbling something hazy. Luchenko pushes the pieces of his own board for half an hour before he speaks to her.

“How are you feeling?” He asks.

“I haven’t made any mistakes.”

“No…how are _you_ feeling?”

“Oh. Fine, well. Unsettled.”

“Adjournments are tough, especially in a game like this.”

“No, no. It was good that he adjourned. _We_ adjourned. It would be pointless and tiring.”

“That is why you are sleeping?” They laugh. She stares at the bishop as if it’s a wild animal.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s almost four.” Luchenko leaves a few moments later, carrying his briefcase.

Beth stays. She plays by herself for one more hour, the tension in her veins refusing to leave her, the feeling that she’ll break remaining in her heart. She pushes the wooden pieces of the hotel, back and forth, shifting the board, searching the table for a glass of water.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Borgov says as he opens the door. Then, his posture stiffens.

“Luchenko left an hour ago,” Harmon informs him.

“Ah.” He seems confused, but his face remains calm, strict. “I saw the light and assumed he’d be here.”

“I lost some of the pieces in the board in my room. I came down here.”

“I’m sorry to bother you. I cannot play in my room, my wife is sleeping.”

“I saw her, with your son. At the museum.” She smiles nervously. “You didn’t see me.”

“I saw you. But there were people there, I didn’t want to make contact.”

“Oh. Those that follow you everywhere?”

“Yes.” He still seems unattainable, Beth thinks, even here, even without a suit, even with the buttons of his white shirt trailing loose and dark circles under his eyes.

“I’ll go up to my room, then,” she says.

“No. Please, don’t leave on my account.” There’s something in his voice, like a metal hook floating above him, swooping down to grasp strands of her feelings and untangle her words. She thinks of the higher thing, on the ceiling. She doesn’t look. She’s always afraid she’ll look one day and it’ll be clear of chessboards and pieces- just empty, plain, stone or wood or sky. 

“Are we meant not to have any contact?”

“Strictly speaking, we are meant not to directly discuss the game,” he glances at the table behind her, “though I must say you underestimate me quite terribly.”

“I’ve been playing for hours.”

“Me too.”

“Well, there’s no advantage if we both don’t sleep.” She chuckles and glances at him- she’s never took notice of how blue his eyes are. Well, that’s a lie. She has noticed. Just not from so close.

“Miss Harmon?”

“Sorry.” She steps back and re-arranges the board. Now, it’s as if nothing has happened at all. No game played, no feeling felt. It has vanished into neat, original positions. The wooden pieces are suddenly hot under her fingers.

“Are you alright?”  
“Yes.”

“You seem a little…”

“I’m not drunk. Or high. You said it yourself; I can’t afford to lose.”

“Oh.” He fiddles the cufflinks on his shirt. “I am sorry about that. It was a harsh thing to tell.”

“But it is true,” Harmon mumbles, “that’s why it bothered me. It was an understanding I didn’t except you to have. I have nothing other than chess- you have your wife, your son, your life.” She was away from him now, moving the pieces on her table. He stared at her, though she failed to notice.

“And here I was, thinking you understood.” Beth jerks her head to the side- still, she doesn’t look at him.

“How do you mean?”

“My wife, my son, my life.” The small metal hook in his voice again, tangling, spinning, ascending.

“Yes.” She drinks a glass of water and thinks she’s getting sick of the Sicilian. When she realises he isn’t going to speak- he’s bent over his own board, pushing his bishop across it, she takes a breath. “You do not like them?”

“Like them!,” he scoffs, “I wish things were so simple, Miss Harmon. I wish it were possible to hate, to truly hate, or dislike or love, to feel anything at all without the complications of other emotions, of everything.”

“Is that an elaborate way of admitting to affairs?” She says lightly, and smiles.

“How bold of you.” His voice is low.

“It’s the modern openings.” Beth feels as if there’s something swirling above them, and she’s trying to float onto the words of their conversation, keeping it from being sucked up.

“No, Miss Harmon, I meant” he starts, but she exchanges queens and says:

“Don’t explain yourself. I know. Everything, every _one_ is simply tolerable. No, that’s not it. Without effect.”

“несущественный,” he offers.

“Inconsequential.”

“Yes. I understand.”

“I know you do. However well you might hide it, you are intuitive, just like me.”

“Hide it?” He laughed, eyebrows shooting up. “How could I hide it?”

“Tactics, theory. Undefeated. A machine. You must know that’s what they say of you.”

“And you think it isn’t…what? How shall I say? Destructive enough to be genius?”

“That isn’t what I meant.” He walks closer to her chess board- he has no tie, his sleeves are rolled up. Beth is aware of her messy hair and her hotel nightgown- but he’s seen her in worst moments. He’s seen her resign.

“Except it is.”

“No. It doesn’t feel passionate enough.” She regrets it the moment she says it, the wrongfulness of the words.

“Now you are insulting me, Miss Harmon.” The metal hook dives in and plucks out her heart.

“I don’t think it true. It was an empty statement.”

“You think I have no passion? Chess is my-”

“Life. Yes. I know. That’s obvious.” She doesn’t know why she’s behaving carelessly, nervously. She feels like he’s losing in a match, or like she’s running out of time, or like she’s only a child playing against a grandmaster.

“I meant to say _lover_ ,” Borgov says. Her breath stops. The fluidity of her heartbeat turns into something sticky. She looks up at him- he’s close now, he hasn’t stopped staring at her, his eyes are bright and intense. They reflect the ceiling.

She bows her head and stares at the queens that are standing on the sidelines. “You shouldn’t have traded.”

“I know.”

“Almost as if you thought of tactics and not your intuition.” He’s smiling, she knows. She doesn’t need to look up.

“You don’t show your passion. At least not in a direct way.”

“Miss Harmon, chess isn’t a direct game. It’s about the implication.” She leaves her board and takes a step closer to him- his fingers slide slowly against polished wood, and his eyes have finally left her, staring beyond the room.

“Chess is a fight,” she says sternly. 

“Chess is sex.”

Her face remains empty, like her heart. But her mind is spinning. Borgov looks at her again.

“Where do you see it?” She asks him.

“See what?” He knows, of course. He’s only stalling.

“The game. Where do you see it? I see it on the ceiling.”

“I see it in your eyes. You have such big eyes, Miss Harmon- I see it far more clearly than any other opponent.”

“I must begin wearing sunglasses, then,” she jokes.

“Please don’t. It would be cruel to deny me this.” Despite her attempts, the conversation remains heavy, spiralling into the shimmering infinity that hangs above the both of them.

“It was good to talk to you. Finally.” She throws their conversation into past tense and hopes it doesn’t end.

“Yes.”

“You used to represent a lot of things to me. You still do, of course, but somehow they have shifted.”

“You represent things, too. The passion you speak of. The madness.”

“I’m not mad,” Beth counters, and for the first time the burning feeling in her heart transforms into sharp, clear pain.

“Maybe not. But you’ve given yourself to it.” He smiles, tapping on the wooden board.

“So have you! Don’t scold me for being far away when you haven’t seen the real world in decades!”

“I wouldn’t scold you, Miss Harmon. But I think they’re wrong, all those reporters and the people. You don’t play because you’re angry.”

“For what, then? Don’t say for an escape- I’ve had enough pity from the magazines already.”

“Yes, I know. And it would be a lie. You can’t escape if you’re already there.”

“And you?”

“I’ve been there for a long time. I told you before; my passion is a live thing, it moves within the board and the opponent.”

“That’s a very intimate way to look at it. Maybe your opponent doesn’t see it that way.” She doesn’t know why she keeps talking. She can’t see where this will lead- to what action, to what resolution.

“My passion is for the board, Miss Harmon. All this has ever meant; 64 squares.”

“Possibly. I know what you mean.”

“You disagree?”

“Love is too passive. I am angry when I play. And hurt. And I want to destroy it and get it over and I-”

“That is why I said sex.”

“Sex doesn’t excite me. Not truly.”

“But chess excites you, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“In another way.”

“Sex is too small a metaphor.”

“It’s the only one we can speak of. Do you have a better one?”

Beth feels something hot inside her body- not the usual misunderstanding, something more maddening. She feels elevated. She reaches to the board and grabs the white king- the king of her own game. She drags her finger across the smooth wood before shifting her gaze to his hands.

“Take me,” she says. It’s inappropriate, Beth knows, it’s silly. She doesn’t know if she’s attracted to him, she can’t really understand. It’s just to give him something to do, it’s to kill the boredom. There’s something so heavy above her- it isn’t immortality or talent, it’s just the thing she hasn’t figured out yet, the thin she’s given herself to.

“Miss Harmon.” His tone is strict. But they’re alone- in life and in the room.

“несущественный,” she reminds him. He laughs. He hesitates, he reaches out and grasps the white king and begins twisting the piece in his finger, nervously, in some form of anticipation.

“But I am afraid there might be consequence, when it’s about you.” The metal hook spins, drags her bleeding heart up into the clouds- and Beth is empty, Beth sees lightweight love fill the emptiness like air.

“Don’t say things like that. You have your wife, your son, your life.”

“I wish I did.” He keeps moving the king, rubbing his hand on it, scratching against the painted wood.

“Your son seems to love you. And your wife comes to all your matches. And after games you have places to go.”

“My son is still young, he hasn’t differentiated love from safety. My wife accompanies him. Every moment of my life is a moment wasted, a moment better spent playing chess.”

“And you’re a grandmaster. You can beat anyone. You’re a genius player.” She feels foolish to compliment him.

“So are you.”

“I started late, and broken, and empty.”

“Miss Harmon, this conversation is off the rails.”

“Yes, you’re right. It’s not going to go anywhere.”

“You understand, then? How chess is sex, prolonged?” He leans his head to the side.

“Maybe.”

“The whole ordeal, the suffering. The seeking of a release, an end, a decisive finish. And then, afterwards, the pleasure isn’t enough. You lay, you’re empty, you stare at the ceiling.”

“At the ceiling.” She glances upwards for a moment and sees the shadows of boards and pieces.

“You know what I mean, Miss Harmon. At the thing above us.”

“Yes. Will it fall? I am afraid I’ll lose it and I’m afraid it’ll crush me.”

“Me too. But most likely, not.”

“It’ll stay, suspended, hovering over me, consuming me.”

“Us,” Borgov corrects. Then, he places the wooden piece back on the board. “Here is your King.”

“Vasily. _Vasileias-Βασιλειάς_. It comes from Greek, you know. It means King.”

“I know. It’s quite fitting, or at least all the magazines enjoy pondering over it.”   
“Your name isn’t yours, then?”

“No. Of course not.” He smiles briefly, and she knows he understands. It’s almost six in the morning.

“And how will I call you?”

“You won’t.” She feels the intensity of his body, how close he is, how many things could happen. Inconsequential things. She feels his eyes on her, and she lifts up her head to face him. He stares into her eyes, she can feel the intensity of his gaze, piercing through, watching the pieces move inside them. She feels as if she’d like to touch him- it’s so sudden, so awful.

“Goodnight, grandmaster.” He laughs at that little silly surprise.

“Goodnight.”

Beth leaves. When she gets to her room, she is empty. When she looks at the ceiling the king expands. It’s blinding. She lays in her bed and watches the shadows move so fast they become a blur, so quick, so merciless, until it is over, and she is asleep in the light that consumes her.

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a comment.


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